And, she’s Back!

Sorry for the very prolonged blogging delay, peeps. Life happens. And sometimes, that life means avoiding your computer after work hours so that you can rest your weary eyes. Which turns out to have been a great decisions, because after some truly uncomfortable days, I can now say I think I’ve turned the corner to perfect vision.

Life has, as always, proceeded with or without my bloggy interventions. Last weekend I made a christmas stocking for my best friends’ baby (though I’ll never get him another christmas gift, this stocking is so darned cute, I felt like it needed to go to a super cutie pie). Sadly, I can’t remember where I put that camera, so you’ll have to wait for a photo.

Today I baked for the first time in, um about 9 years. I have a very negative baking history. Lots of things that I screwed up because I’m not that great at following directions. However, I feel increasingly guilty about my mother doing everything for Christmas (like, everything), so I decided to give it a try. Mad props to my BFF who walked me through my selected recipes and lent me seriously awesome cookie sheets and cutters. Thanks, Hol!t

First, I made cookies that were introduced to me by my friend Donna. She was at my house at a baby shower I hosted and she brought these cookies. Ever since then, every time I’ve gone to a social event I’ve asked if Donna is there and if she is/was/may be, if she brought these cookies.They’re so good it hurts me just a bit. They’re brown sugar cookies with a browned butter icing in the middle. They turned out pretty well, so I went in for the kill with…

Aunt Frances famous gingersnaps. Man, these are fricking hard to make. There’s boiling of this, chemical reactions of that, and then the rolling out of the dough. I am covered in flour, people. Covered in it. There was so much cookie dough on my countertop I had to dig out a cleaning product more powerful than good old soap and water.

They aren’t perfect. Some of them are a bit crispy, others are a bit thicker, and they’ve all got flour on them. But you know what? They’re righteously tasty. I packed up 6 dozen cookies in a ziploc bag and threw it in the freezer. These are my dad’s favourite cookies. My brother loves them too. I’m bringing them to the family for Christmas Eve.

I’m actually a little scared of baking because I am not good at exercising self restraint. Today I think I did pretty well. I had half of one of the sandwich cookies (I got 41 tops and bottoms, so I made an open faced sandwich with the leftover one) and I threw away the leftover icing. Yes, you read that right. I threw out icing. And I didn’t lick the beaters. I’m bringing the cookies into work tomorrow to see if they’re as good as I think, or if I’m just lured in by the sugar. If they are that good, I’ll make another batch on Christmas Eve and bring them over to my parents’ house for dessert. If not, well, there’s always the gingersnaps.

I have to celebrate this moment. Not only did I confront something I’m scared of (baking), I didn’t expect things to turn out perfectly, and I’m okay that they didn’t. I learned stuff about what I baked. And I didn’t snack on the leftovers or eat the finished products. I think this demonstrates a level of maturity heretofore unseen in my life.

Props to me. And to Donna for one recipe. And Holly for calming me down and interpreting the cryptic words on the recipes. And to Aunt Frances for a seriously awesome if quite finicky recipe.

I’ve had a very hard time feeling festive this year. I’m hoping this baking will help me turn the corner. What do you do with your baking? How do you find the willpower not to eat it all?

Donna’s cookies are like crack. Any chance you’ll leave a few behind at the Stardoms’ on Christmas Eve for Santa (or some Screids)? 🙂 Good on you for trying new things. Baking, like most things in life, gets easier each time you do it.